Tell the world about wood - a call to arms

Tell the world about wood - a call to arms

We've added this story as it links in directly to some of the wide ranging discussions readers had earlier this year on the need to improve our communications game. It's an editorial taken from last week's "The Working Forest Newspaper" - a weekly e-newsletter written for Canadian forestry sector.

"At the B.C. Truck Loggers Convention in January, Dr Patrick Moore described what the resource extraction sector, not just the forest industry, is facing. Well organized, well-funded and inextricably but opaquely linked web of environmental activists are working hard to undermine Canada's strengths.

In this issue researcher and blogger Vivian Krause describes the flood of U.S. charitable funds that pour into Canadian environmental group coffers to undermine Canadian natural resource policy. New Zealander Brent Apthorp of the Forest Industry Engineering Association and publisher of e-newsletter - fridayoffcuts.com - told The Working Forest that the Australasian forest sector needs to fight back against the deluge of misinformation that threatens to turn society against a viable, sustainable and economically essential sector.

At the TLA there was disagreement as to who should be responsible for delivering the message. Government owns the land - let them do it, some say. But aren't governments a large part of the problem? Over 20 years ago, the Canadian industry was beset by the so-called 'War of the Woods'. The Carmanah and Walbran Valley in B.C., Temagami in Ontario and countless other skirmishs with protesters across the country.

There was a response at that time by the forest industry which was effective. The industry started, as Dr Moore often calls for, to 'think retail'. That is, large marketing and promotional campaigns that make the people using the product feel good about what they do. What started in B.C. spread across the country and culminated in a national ad campaign by the then CPPA (now FPAC). It was successful. It started to move the needle of public opinion. It annoyed the enviros. The program was beginning to work.

But something changed. The ad programs were reduced, the money dried up and apparently the War of the Woods was over. It was time for negotiation. If we could speak directly to the people organising the propaganda then we could make deals and convince them to be on our side said the experts.

Since then, we have had countless consultations with people who are only interested in one goal. The latest, the Boreal Forest Accord, which is a shambles, has achieved nothing. It has wasted thousands of dollars of industry money. It has diverted the industry from pursuing the real course: to tell people it's OK to use forest products.

In the late 80s and early 90s, many companies offered tours, set up speakers' bureaus, visited schools, allocated resources - human and financial, and advertised. This should have been the 'business as usual' approach from that time. Direct our messages at the consumer not the special interest. This time we have a whole new social media system to work with.

In 1990, the late E.B. Eddy Forest Products CEO Ted Boswell said "If we can't figure this out - we don't deserve to be successful." Too right, Ted!"

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